Review: Locked In!

Review: Locked In!

It's great to see authors like Simon, who started releasing Speccy games in the mid 1980's and never stopped. Previously he used QUILL, presumably on his real Speccy, and now it's PAW on his Spectrum NEXT.

The presentation and loading screen are pure oldschool, but the plot is contemporary. Escape rooms, in case you don't know, became popular in the 2010's and they involve being locked in a room and solving puzzles to get out. You also pay for the privilege.

On paper, Locked In! is the perfect game for the fairweather adventurer: it's a linear 11 screen escape room text adventure, where objects cannot be transferred between rooms. Some of these puzzles are brilliant, involving creative thinking, and perhaps a little googling. Because each room is a self-contained puzzle, you know that everything you need is at hand and you don't need to worry about missing something 10 screens back. Schoolboy knowledge of calculators is also a benefit.

Unfortunately, some bits of the game are impossible to all but the most battle-addled adventurer. One part even required detailed knowledge of the PAW input system. Once you encounter such features, you can never quite trust that the next puzzle will be fair.

Despite my criticism, this is a great adventure - as long as you know the following:

• STAND ON SHELF (don't worry it'll make sense later)
• keep track of the colour doors you pass through
• you need to input the 10 door colours at the end, but PAW can't handle 10 letter input, so you have to SAY it as 2 x 5 letter strings with a space between.

I don't consider these tips as spoilers - they are bugfixes :-) Now go play it!